First all-civilian flight to orbit blazes new trail for charity with this week's SpaceX launch

An all-civilian, non-astronaut crew, including a childhood cancer survivor, is ready for blastoff this week on a history-making SpaceX flight. Launch is scheduled for Wednesday evening for the first fully commercial, non-government flight to orbit, a charity-driven mission proponents say will open the door for "everyday people" to fly in space.

While billionaires Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos made headlines earlier this summer spending a few minutes in weightlessness during up-and-down sub-orbital flights to space, the Inspiration4 crew will spend three days orbiting the Earth aboard a SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule. And not just any orbit. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket will boost the Crew Dragon Resilience into a planned 360-mile-high orbit, 100 miles above the International Space Station, higher than anyone has flown since the final shuttle visit to the Hubble Space Telescope in 2009.